1946 Atlas Lathe

In January 2014, I bought an antique Atlas metal lathe. It was built in September 1946.

I was eager to buy a lathe so I could start making my own parts for projects as well as learn about machining. Although it would have been much easier to invest in a modern lathe, I enjoyed restoring this lathe back to working order.

Here’s how it looked when I got it:

After the restoration started:

I purchased a lot of original parts that were missing on ebay.

I experimented with electrolysis rust removal with this project. It takes a lot of the manual labor out of the process.